Rollercoaster ride. From ‘standby mode’ to ‘full UTI off-the-planet mode’ in 24 hours. Thankfully the antibiotics are kicking in and today he was mostly coherent.
It was a wild ride though!
My mother phoned her cousin in a nursing home mid-morning and was concerned that she wasn't making sense. She phoned her cousin's son to tell him. He phoned his sister, the geographically closest member of the family, who went straight in to visit her mother. Having confirmed her mother was confused, she asked the nursing home to check for a UTI and lo! She did indeed have a UTI. A course of antibiotics later and she's no longer confused.
I don't know whether to be impressed by Mum's quick response, or dismayed that Mum diagnosed a UTI over the phone faster than the care staff who were actually interacting with her. In fairness, her family had visited the night before and she hadn't been confused, so the UTI had developed quickly.
I've seen several family members suddenly become completely off the planet due to a UTI so it is always the first thing we think of!
It was kind of fun though. Dad was in great spirits and thought he was being hilarious. I wanted to know if he was aware of the clergy visit the previous day, so I asked him 'Do you know who came to see you yesterday?' He shot back 'Mickey Mouse!' I replied 'Well, not quite.' 'Donald Duck!' he said, laughing himself silly.
My late mother developed a UTI in hospital. The Specialist suspected her confusion caused by booze. Both my cousin, who worked with old people and Mum's best friend, a retired nurse, suggested it was a UTI when I spoke to them over the phone, so I mentioned it to the staff.
The anti-biotics kicked in quickly.
Now that I'm 70 I'm wondering if I should have Test for a UTI tattooed on my body somewhere.
My father seems also to be doing better. My sister saw him yesterday and said his colouring appeared the best it had since he was hospitalized last Monday. I Chatted with him last night and he sounded almost as well as he did when I was calling him prior to his fall. I can drop by tomorrow when I am back to work. ( The hospital is adjacent to the university.)
I visited my sister this morning in her care home. She will be 80 next month( “If I’m still here”) but it is hard to know what to do to celebrate. On a good day she would enjoy going out for a meal, or going to church, but her good days are rare. Even if she knows you are visiting she can be still in bed, refusing to get up, as happened at Christmas when she was invited to her son’s house, or too unwell to be interested. So unpredictable.
No doubt the Home will have a bit of a tea party on the birthday.
Her ex-husband died last December. Today she asked “Was it a false death?”
So sorry to read this @Puzzler, that's hard. Do you think they are depressed? I do hope they feel able to celebrate their birthday next month. Does the home do it all, or is there some input required from you?
Continued good wishes for the recovery of both Fathers, @Gill H and @Caissa.
Cheery Gardener, my sister has long term mental health problems, as well as those of old age. She has two adult children, one who lives quite near. I visit occasionally but am not close. Thanks for your kind comments.
I was about to visit my father in the hospital when I snapped my reading glasses right in half at the nose-piece. Ms. C. on the way to take me to optician to see if they have a set of frames we can pop the lenses into. Using cheaters at the moment.
Another update! On Thursday I was told Dad would soon be transferred to a more local, smaller hospital for recuperation and physio. This is a huge change as it marks a move away from urgent medical care and towards getting him stronger and more mobile.
Well, 'soon' turned out to be 'soon and very soon'! He was transferred yesterday. Not without incident, as he was taken to the hospital lounge at 11am to wait for an ambulance, but it didn't arrive until 7pm which was extremely stressful and unpleasant for him. Fortunately we were able to be at the new hospital when he arrived. It'll take a while to settle down but the staff are lovely and it's a much more pleasant environment.
Still a slog for me to get to, but it's on the same bus route as Mum's care home so I can see both in an afternoon.
Gill, that's very good news!!
Hoping for your parents to do well in their circumstances, and for you to be able to rest appropriately as you navigate these changes in their lives.
I have had a lovely day. My mother's old school had an Open Day with displays of old photos etc, and I took Mum.
I thought it might go one of two ways:
a) she'd meet up with people she knew and have a lovely day or
b) she'd find out that everyone else from her class is dead or incapacitated and have a sad day.
In the event she seems to have been the only nonogenarian there, and she did hear of several deaths. However, quite a few of her teachers in the 1940s continued teaching throughout the 1950s, so there were plenty of people to share reminiscences about the teaching staff. Mum enjoyed lots of friendly conversations. I've got some lovely photos of Mum clearly enjoying herself
The school had put on a tremendous display and the teas / coffees and home baking were first class.
What a lovely thing to do - glad to hear North East Mum enjoyed herself!
David's mum and some of her classmates used to visit a former teacher until they were well into their 70s - I suppose the teacher must have been maybe ten to fifteen years older than her pupils.
Oh, it's still a major outing, only one bus an hour which takes 45 minutes, so a visit to both takes out my whole afternoon.
Dad is in reasonably good spirits and has friends visiting. In addition to his difficulties with asthma and heart failure we can now add stage 4 kidney failure to the list of things he is having to deal with. But the staff are superb and doing all they can.
Mum is not really aware of the passage of time now, which is a blessing as I wasn't able to visit yesterday due to an outbreak of norovirus at her care home. So no visitors allowed.
@Hugal and I are off for a few days' holiday and much relieved that both my parents are in the best place for them.
@North East Quine, that sounds like such a lovely day for you and your mum!
@Gill H, it's a relief to know the parents are safe and taken care of so you and @Hugal can have a few days of fun!
My Daddy-O's Celebration of Life was yesterday, and it was such a lovely time! We sang some of Dad's very favorite songs and hymns, including the Navy Hymn which meant so much to him and all our family, and I played Debussy's Clair de Lune which is something he's told me for most of my life that he wanted me to do at his funeral. That was hard, and the notes were swimming in my tears, but then little C started squealing, making me and D-U (who was my page turner) giggle! C has no idea how perfect that was!
There were military honors at the end, and that was the absolute hardest part for me. When the Navy Lieutenant Commander presented me with the flag it was all I could do to not ugly cry.
I know Dad would have been very pleased with his ceremony yesterday!
While I think I know what you mean by "ugly cry" (I did a fair bit of it after David died), I don't think it's actually ugly; it's simply a measure of how much you loved your dad, and I'm sure your friends and relations would have understood perfectly.
@jedijudy I'm so pleased to hear about your Dad's celebration of life, and that it went so well. Having some time to plan and make things as you think they would have liked I think makes a difference to the service itself, but also in time being able to look back with a feeling of pleasure. It's a hard time and a hard thing, but so worthwhile. Little C's contribution sounds so perfect, a reminder that life continues. Go well
Glad things went so well @jedijudy. Glad both your parents are doing well @Gill H .
As I mentioned elsewhere I was away for the weekend for people I've know for thirty odd years, we'll all becoming the 'aging parents' now.
Well, big news - Dad is coming home! We had the discharge meeting at the hospital on Monday. His health needs are severe and complex, and to be honest it's a worry that he won't have 24-hour medical care. But the district nurses will be coming daily to see to some pressure sores so they will keep an eye.
We will need to arrange 24-hour live-in care, which is a new experience for me. Someone is coming today to explain something called Direct Payments, which will help towards the cost. But we will need to be responsible for the contract, keeping records of payments etc. All sounds a bit daunting.
Meanwhile Mum is reasonably content in her nursing home. On my last visit they had just brought her lunch, and I was able to cut it up into small pieces and feed her. She ate half a plate of ham, chips and coleslaw, and a full dish of rice pudding, which I'll take as a win. We still haven't told her about Dad and she hasn't asked - one of the blessings of dementia.
Usually if you have either direct payments or a personal health budget, they will direct you to a 3rd sector organisation to help you with the pay paperwoork and contracts side of things.
Yes, we had a visit this morning from a lady who works for an organisation called Dewi's. Apparently they can deal with the financial stuff which is good to hear.
I thought the following tale of Aging Parents might amuse. The background is that a relative had his nonogenarian mother-in-law visiting.
Mum was woken by the phone at 6am. Thinking that no-one phones at 6am unless it's bad news she answered the phone as quickly as she could. She could hear someone at the other end, but they did not speak.
Alarmed, she used last number redial to call back, but the phone wasn't answered.
Meanwhile, my relative was woken by the phone at 6.05am. Thinking that no-one phones at 6.05am unless it's bad news he hurried downstairs to answer the phone as quickly as he could. He found his mother-in-law holding his mobile, but the phone had stopped ringing by the time he got to it.
So he checked the number and realised it was Mum.
It turned out that his mother in law had woken early and decided to go downstairs to watch TV. She had picked up his mobile thinking it was the TV remote, and managed to phone Mum's number. She was puzzled that the TV wasn't switching on, and was even more puzzled when the "remote" started ringing.
By the time they had sorted it all out, everyone was wide awake. But all's well that ends well.
I am not what this thread means by an Ageing Parent (my children may disagree) but I hope I'm not the only 60-something person who has on occasion tried to change TV channel with their mobile phone .
And yes my 3 offspring ( 46, 39 and 37) are very much on to their ageing Mum even though I did point out that I still have a job and-by extension-a life.
NEQ - your remote control story sonds familiar. My mum, in her late nineties at the time, got in a terrible muddle trying to change channels on the TV with the remote control for her reclining chair! We had a good laugh about it - eventually.
The organisation that deals with direct payments is called Dewis (Welsh for “choice”) - it is nothing to do with Dewi!
PM me if you have any queries Gill, unless we live in the same part of Wales, which I don’t think we do.
Well, big news - Dad is coming home! We had the discharge meeting at the hospital on Monday. His health needs are severe and complex, and to be honest it's a worry that he won't have 24-hour medical care. But the district nurses will be coming daily to see to some pressure sores so they will keep an eye.
We will need to arrange 24-hour live-in care, which is a new experience for me. Someone is coming today to explain something called Direct Payments, which will help towards the cost. But we will need to be responsible for the contract, keeping records of payments etc. All sounds a bit daunting.
Meanwhile Mum is reasonably content in her nursing home. On my last visit they had just brought her lunch, and I was able to cut it up into small pieces and feed her. She ate half a plate of ham, chips and coleslaw, and a full dish of rice pudding, which I'll take as a win. We still haven't told her about Dad and she hasn't asked - one of the blessings of dementia.
Last week my father was up and walking around the ward for the first time since his fall. He is in transitional care in the hospital awaiting a placement in a nursing home. He has a physiotherapy consult coming up and in 2 weeks he, my sister and I are meeting with a social worker that has been assigned to him.
Good to read of this progress @Caissa, I hope it continues. I also hope the Social Worker meeting goes well and that a really good nursing home can be found for him
Dad is home from hospital as of yesterday. He's been there since the end of March so there is a lot to get used to. Not least, the fact that he now has full-time live-in care. The carer arrived yesterday, and she seems lovely. We took her out for fish and chips last night as she'd had a 5-hour train journey to get to us!
There is much to sort out, but fortunately I have been signed off work for 3 weeks (partly because of the stress of all this change, and partly because I have just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes).
Comments
It was a wild ride though!
I don't know whether to be impressed by Mum's quick response, or dismayed that Mum diagnosed a UTI over the phone faster than the care staff who were actually interacting with her. In fairness, her family had visited the night before and she hadn't been confused, so the UTI had developed quickly.
It was kind of fun though. Dad was in great spirits and thought he was being hilarious. I wanted to know if he was aware of the clergy visit the previous day, so I asked him 'Do you know who came to see you yesterday?' He shot back 'Mickey Mouse!' I replied 'Well, not quite.' 'Donald Duck!' he said, laughing himself silly.
The anti-biotics kicked in quickly.
Now that I'm 70 I'm wondering if I should have Test for a UTI tattooed on my body somewhere.
No doubt the Home will have a bit of a tea party on the birthday.
Her ex-husband died last December. Today she asked “Was it a false death?”
Continued good wishes for the recovery of both Fathers, @Gill H and @Caissa.
Well, 'soon' turned out to be 'soon and very soon'! He was transferred yesterday. Not without incident, as he was taken to the hospital lounge at 11am to wait for an ambulance, but it didn't arrive until 7pm which was extremely stressful and unpleasant for him. Fortunately we were able to be at the new hospital when he arrived. It'll take a while to settle down but the staff are lovely and it's a much more pleasant environment.
Still a slog for me to get to, but it's on the same bus route as Mum's care home so I can see both in an afternoon.
Hoping for your parents to do well in their circumstances, and for you to be able to rest appropriately as you navigate these changes in their lives.
I thought it might go one of two ways:
a) she'd meet up with people she knew and have a lovely day or
b) she'd find out that everyone else from her class is dead or incapacitated and have a sad day.
In the event she seems to have been the only nonogenarian there, and she did hear of several deaths. However, quite a few of her teachers in the 1940s continued teaching throughout the 1950s, so there were plenty of people to share reminiscences about the teaching staff. Mum enjoyed lots of friendly conversations. I've got some lovely photos of Mum clearly enjoying herself
The school had put on a tremendous display and the teas / coffees and home baking were first class.
I'm knackered now, though!
David's mum and some of her classmates used to visit a former teacher until they were well into their 70s - I suppose the teacher must have been maybe ten to fifteen years older than her pupils.
Dad is in reasonably good spirits and has friends visiting. In addition to his difficulties with asthma and heart failure we can now add stage 4 kidney failure to the list of things he is having to deal with. But the staff are superb and doing all they can.
Mum is not really aware of the passage of time now, which is a blessing as I wasn't able to visit yesterday due to an outbreak of norovirus at her care home. So no visitors allowed.
@Hugal and I are off for a few days' holiday and much relieved that both my parents are in the best place for them.
@Gill H, it's a relief to know the parents are safe and taken care of so you and @Hugal can have a few days of fun!
My Daddy-O's Celebration of Life was yesterday, and it was such a lovely time! We sang some of Dad's very favorite songs and hymns, including the Navy Hymn which meant so much to him and all our family, and I played Debussy's Clair de Lune which is something he's told me for most of my life that he wanted me to do at his funeral. That was hard, and the notes were swimming in my tears, but then little C started squealing, making me and D-U (who was my page turner) giggle! C has no idea how perfect that was!
There were military honors at the end, and that was the absolute hardest part for me. When the Navy Lieutenant Commander presented me with the flag it was all I could do to not ugly cry.
I know Dad would have been very pleased with his ceremony yesterday!
While I think I know what you mean by "ugly cry" (I did a fair bit of it after David died), I don't think it's actually ugly; it's simply a measure of how much you loved your dad, and I'm sure your friends and relations would have understood perfectly.
As I mentioned elsewhere I was away for the weekend for people I've know for thirty odd years, we'll all becoming the 'aging parents' now.
We will need to arrange 24-hour live-in care, which is a new experience for me. Someone is coming today to explain something called Direct Payments, which will help towards the cost. But we will need to be responsible for the contract, keeping records of payments etc. All sounds a bit daunting.
Meanwhile Mum is reasonably content in her nursing home. On my last visit they had just brought her lunch, and I was able to cut it up into small pieces and feed her. She ate half a plate of ham, chips and coleslaw, and a full dish of rice pudding, which I'll take as a win. We still haven't told her about Dad and she hasn't asked - one of the blessings of dementia.
I thought the following tale of Aging Parents might amuse. The background is that a relative had his nonogenarian mother-in-law visiting.
Mum was woken by the phone at 6am. Thinking that no-one phones at 6am unless it's bad news she answered the phone as quickly as she could. She could hear someone at the other end, but they did not speak.
Alarmed, she used last number redial to call back, but the phone wasn't answered.
Meanwhile, my relative was woken by the phone at 6.05am. Thinking that no-one phones at 6.05am unless it's bad news he hurried downstairs to answer the phone as quickly as he could. He found his mother-in-law holding his mobile, but the phone had stopped ringing by the time he got to it.
So he checked the number and realised it was Mum.
It turned out that his mother in law had woken early and decided to go downstairs to watch TV. She had picked up his mobile thinking it was the TV remote, and managed to phone Mum's number. She was puzzled that the TV wasn't switching on, and was even more puzzled when the "remote" started ringing.
By the time they had sorted it all out, everyone was wide awake. But all's well that ends well.
I am not what this thread means by an Ageing Parent (my children may disagree) but I hope I'm not the only 60-something person who has on occasion tried to change TV channel with their mobile phone
PM me if you have any queries Gill, unless we live in the same part of Wales, which I don’t think we do.
Sending love, hugs, and prayers.
That too, How could I forget? Must be the dementia.
There is much to sort out, but fortunately I have been signed off work for 3 weeks (partly because of the stress of all this change, and partly because I have just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes).